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I cannot use ctrl-alt-delete, etc to gain control of my system

Asked by Steven D. Shown

Ubuntu 10.10. In rare instances where my machine freezes up, I cannot use any keyboard commands such as ctrl+alt+delete, or ctrl+alt+F2, etc to gain control over the system. Even when the machine is running normally these commands have no affect what so ever, but other than that the keyboard works as it is supposed to. Is there any way to enable these keyboard commands so that I don't have to hard boot the system when a lockup condition arises?

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enubuntu (mr.tennents) said : 		#1

Hi, try to do this:
Select "System"->"Preferences"->"Keyboard".
Select the "Layouts" tab and click on the "Layout Options" button.
Select "Key sequence to kill the X server" and enable "Control + Alt + Backspace".
Then try to press ctrl-alt-delete.

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Steven D. Shown (stevenshown90) said : 		#2

Hi, thanks for the information. I tried as you suggested, and now control+alt+backspace works fine, but control+alt+delete still has no effect what so ever. Now control+alt+backspace will give me control of my system back, but from forum posts that I have read that can cause data loss. Does it matter that this is a WUBI install?

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enubuntu (mr.tennents) said : 		#3

I don't understand...
Would you like to start the task manager with ctrl-alt-delete like windows?

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Steven D. Shown (stevenshown90) said : 		#4

No, not so much that, but from what I have read ctrl-alt-delete is supposed to reboot the system with no loss of data. I can't do anything with ctrl-alt-delete. It has no effect at all.

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marcobra (Marco Braida) (marcobra) said : 		#5

To manage the freeze of your system and even Ctrl+Alt+Del doesn’t work anymore, the mouse is stuck on the screen any none of the key combinations will work, don’t think of the reset button just yet.

Hold down the Right Alt and SysRq keys and press this sequence:

R E I S U B

This will cleanly unmount drives, terminate processes and nicely reboot your machine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key

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